But it is also a mater of computing time.
Making the missiles plain faster would be a lot cheaper and simpler processing wise then adding retargetting.
The Missiles are a Lie (analysis)
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Making the missiles plain faster would be a lot cheaper and simpler processing wise then adding retargetting.
I don't know how complicated it might be to make the missles retarget in stellaris, but there are certain other space games where missles can do that.
I think though that missles might jump straight from useless to extremely overpowered by 100% retargetting and coming through point defenses. Gamedesignwise there should be a somewhat balanced tradeoff between the 3 weapon categories. How was the design intent with that atm? To me it looks like this:
Kinetics: Short range, Anti-Shield
Beam: Medium range, Anti-Armour
Missles: Long Range, Massive Damage but weak against point defense
I think kinetics and beams work mostly fine. I think there could be done something with rapid-fire for kinetics (fast attack with a voley of rapid fire till overheating, then retreat and engage again from a different angle) and continuous-fire for beams (growing damage over time on the same target).
One problem missles have is that their long range makes them even weaker against point defense. One could say missles fulfill their intent in that they are powerful enough to have everyone use point defenses. But if everyone does and noone uses missles, you could get an advantage by not using point defenses and more attack-power instead. But this is somewhat lame as a starting-weapon-type.
Another bad point of missles not even in the game is that they probably use a lot of space to store and could go out of ammunition faster then kinetics and beams(depending on the energy source used...).
I think
A: Missles can only by viable if they use some technology to avoid point defense to some degree. Cloaking could be nice, so it depends on the ships detection abilitys how many missles their point defenses can shoot down. I guess every detected missle will be shot down. Shielded missles could be another approach but that would strongly favour the side with more and better ships, which may not be wanted. (Since a growth in shield strength will strengthen every single missle, so more missles will benefit more then few missles).
Decoys and Swarm-Missles could be added to further distract the point defenses. But a good point defense will most probably shoot down nearly 100% of slow long range missles without any protection specifically against PD.
* Warp-torpedoes could be another route to go. Energytorpedoes warped into enemy ships causing spacial disortion and some kind of explosion should not be targetable by standard point defenses.
B: With retargetable missles and cloaking vs detection retargeting should probably not be too OP as missles near enemy ships will be most likely detected while retargeting. If detection works over time this is automatically the case, but it might be better to just count retargeting missles as new missles with one new chance of beeing detected.
C: Maybe this problem will be solved by just adjusting some numbers and code behind the screen.
I think though that missles might jump straight from useless to extremely overpowered by 100% retargetting and coming through point defenses. Gamedesignwise there should be a somewhat balanced tradeoff between the 3 weapon categories. How was the design intent with that atm? To me it looks like this:
Kinetics: Short range, Anti-Shield
Beam: Medium range, Anti-Armour
Missles: Long Range, Massive Damage but weak against point defense
I think kinetics and beams work mostly fine. I think there could be done something with rapid-fire for kinetics (fast attack with a voley of rapid fire till overheating, then retreat and engage again from a different angle) and continuous-fire for beams (growing damage over time on the same target).
One problem missles have is that their long range makes them even weaker against point defense. One could say missles fulfill their intent in that they are powerful enough to have everyone use point defenses. But if everyone does and noone uses missles, you could get an advantage by not using point defenses and more attack-power instead. But this is somewhat lame as a starting-weapon-type.
Another bad point of missles not even in the game is that they probably use a lot of space to store and could go out of ammunition faster then kinetics and beams(depending on the energy source used...).
I think
A: Missles can only by viable if they use some technology to avoid point defense to some degree. Cloaking could be nice, so it depends on the ships detection abilitys how many missles their point defenses can shoot down. I guess every detected missle will be shot down. Shielded missles could be another approach but that would strongly favour the side with more and better ships, which may not be wanted. (Since a growth in shield strength will strengthen every single missle, so more missles will benefit more then few missles).
Decoys and Swarm-Missles could be added to further distract the point defenses. But a good point defense will most probably shoot down nearly 100% of slow long range missles without any protection specifically against PD.
* Warp-torpedoes could be another route to go. Energytorpedoes warped into enemy ships causing spacial disortion and some kind of explosion should not be targetable by standard point defenses.
B: With retargetable missles and cloaking vs detection retargeting should probably not be too OP as missles near enemy ships will be most likely detected while retargeting. If detection works over time this is automatically the case, but it might be better to just count retargeting missles as new missles with one new chance of beeing detected.
C: Maybe this problem will be solved by just adjusting some numbers and code behind the screen.
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Yeah, that's the downside.
Like if they're kept slow, at longer distances, bigger fleet sizes, you'll have incredible amounts of missiles at any given moment, and we all know how bad the game can chug already in late game to begin with. Now imagine how bad it could get with hundreds of missiles recalculating targets every moment.
On the other hand just increasing their travel speed massively would actually end up in slightly better performance because there's a bit less stuff for the game to handle per second.
Only headache would be the need to rebalance the missile/PD stats around having missiles travel so fast.
The reason why I feel this is crude, though, is because it just would kind of feel weird and tacky if they had super fast travel times, like it would look kind of weird watching the missiles go ridiculously fast to their targets. The reason why they currently move so slowly is because it's a representation of the massive distances they're using sub FTL thrusters to cross, and it also is nice to watch a swarm of missiles make their way to a target to obliterate them (read: overkill), gives them a weighty, meaty feel.
But either way, something that feels and looks nice but doesn't actually work well is what most people would coin "useless", so I think just massively ramping missile speeds if retargeting proves to be an unnecessary addition to endgame lag would be as good solution as any.
I think I have a pretty clear view of the design intentions behind the weapons. At least the last 4 Updates did not force me change them. I have to agree with Kinetics and Beams's.
For "missiles" however you have to differentiate between Misiles, Torpedoes and Swarm Missiles.
Missiles are first a Evasion Counter. Thier ability to just ignore Evasion has been in the game since the start and was maintained after Tracking replaced "Can not be evaded". Indeed it's tracking does not fall off with higher Slot sizes, a unique among the weapons (except maybe Arc Emitter).
Torpedoes in turn are large ship counters. They have the same defense skipping profile as bombers do.
Swarm missiles are intended as the counter to thier weapons usual weakness. Like Disruptors are to Shields for Energy Weapons.
Actually I had some ideas regarding that. There are some general issues with this Model of Point Defense:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...e-and-pd-never-work-out.980433/#post-22080668
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Missles should speed up over time. They are in a vacuum while under constant propulsion.
I would have them travel at their current speed and make them speed up over time. This will make missiles fired at max range really good against point defense encouraging your PD destroyers to close in.
I think the best responce to overkill would just be to have the missles pick their target once they are halfway to the enemy fleet. It would make sense to include on board targeting computers.
I would have them travel at their current speed and make them speed up over time. This will make missiles fired at max range really good against point defense encouraging your PD destroyers to close in.
I think the best responce to overkill would just be to have the missles pick their target once they are halfway to the enemy fleet. It would make sense to include on board targeting computers.
That would be a really nice idea. There are a few weapons in games that perform better on long ranges. Main issues would be Combat Computers set to close in.
And them running away would be no fun for anybody either. Trust me, had chase matches happen to often in Space Empires V automatic/simultaneous combat resolution.
Regarding Speed in a Vacuum:
Well, the same applies to Ships themself too. And yet they do not have unlimited top speeds in any relevant game.
True relativistic combat is tricky (once again, see Children of a Dead Earth). And not nessesarily in a way that makes a good game. CoDE explicitly says it is "a simulation first, a game second".
Regarding missiles picking thier target halfway:
Then wich direction would they move in to begin with? What if the enemy Fleet is split up. What if a small part is going ahead/traling behind due to circumstances. Again, retargetting requires some rework of the Combat Simulation mechanics first. But once that is done, it is there and could be used for many different Weapons besides Missiles.
I wish that we had a close, medium, and long range varient for combat computers at each hull size.
Unfortunately this runs into another very basic problem:
The AI can not choose to use them. It would use them poorly, as it did before 1.3.
The Routines that Control Fleets, Design Ships, does Diplomacy and Build Ships are entirely unrelated.
The Admiral goes to War with Ships he could not (re)design, in a War he had no say in starting, agaisnt an enemy he knows only what Sensors (and any Omniscient AI bonus) tells him. Heck you could propably make a compelling puzzle game out of being that Admiral.
The problem with missiles is usually they are just a kiting weapon and under this combat fleet combat system that is not useful.There should just very powerfull but slow.
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You can mod them back in for Multiplayer games or your singleplayer games where you do not care.
But do not expect them to be around if you want Archievements
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You can mod them back in for Multiplayer games or your singleplayer games where you do not care.
But do not expect them to be around if you want Archievements
I used afterburners in 1.3 to create a pseudo different roles for my ships. (corvettes getting in range before crusiers for example and forming a meat shield) so it was not THAT bad of losing the combat computers.
Though this was also taken away from me probably because AI was also to dump to use afterburners.
I am just sick of it that the player loses liberty after liberty combat and sector wise just because of a nonfunctional AI.
And mods...well yeah maybe I would like to get some achievments but even when not mods cant fix everything and Devs shouldnt relay on them.
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There is AI not functioning because of a bug.
And AI not being technically capable of doing what it would need to do to use that gamemechanic.
Combat Computers are the later, plain and simple.
It is not a mater of "they did not put enough work into it". It is a mater "we do not know how to build such a AI yet, or it is not feasible on the games large scale".
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The devs know there's a problem. I think they tweaked missiles, but I think they commented that in order to fix missiles, they are going to have to make some serious changes to fleets, combat and point defense...again
Less bad, but you should still avoid them as players. Might be okay to start with them if you branch out to the other two immedately.
To quote Wiz: